If you read my last blog entry, you know that I’m working with several other women in our community to form a VBAC Coalition that will work to pressure area hospitals to reverse their bans on VBAC.
Now that we have formed our core group, we have divided the work into several categories.
1. I’m in charge of developing a list of contacts for hospitals–names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. In addition to sending a letter to every physician telling them about what we are doing, we will be contacting the decision makers at the top and scheduling a meeting with them to present our case. Some of the people on our list include
- The CEO
- The Department Head of Obstetrics
- The Department Head of Anesthesia(because VBAC Bans often result from anesthesiologists who don’t want to be on site while a woman is VBACing.)
- The Nurse Manager over Obstetrics (or Director of Women’s and Children’s Health)
- The VP of Mission and Ethics (some other similar jobs might be a director of compliance or risk management)
2. Another woman is in charge of compiling the evidence, including relevant statistics, research studies, and such.
3. Another woman is in charge of circulating a petition (our goal is to obtain at least 300 signatures to present to the hospital to show them that this is important to many women in our community) and collecting letters from a recent letter-writing campaign.
4. Another woman is in charge of research–in other words, getting to the bottom of the issue. As we make phone calls trying to find out which issues and which people are really responsible for the ban, it seems as though everyone is pointing their fingers at someone else. The hospital points its finger at their malpractice insurance provider. The insurance provider claims they never put any such pressure on the hospital to quit providing VBACs. We have to truly understand the issue before we can give them a compelling reason to change.
5. Another woman is compiling a binder of all our work to present to hospital administration when we meet with them.
I really think this is going to work. Stay tuned for step 3!